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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 7: Of Logs and Specks

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In this final post of my series on sin and sexual minorities, I will examine an additional major principle that is useful in determining what sins we should prioritize addressing, and I will conclude with a few related thoughts. This principle comes from Matthew 7:3-5 (ESV):

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 6: How Doctrine Matters

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Up until now in this series, I have focused on sins against sexual minority people.  As I alluded to in the introduction, I will now turn to some initial reflections on how to work this into a holistic understanding of sin with respect to sexual minorities.  I am writing from the perspective shared with the other writers of this blog, that “God created human beings male and female, and that all sexual intimacy outside of a faithful, lifelong marital union of a man and woman is contrary to His plan.”  The purpose of this series has not been to argue that this does not matter, but rather that we should not consider only this matter when looking at the topic of sin and sexual minorities, because all other areas of Christian morality also matter greatly.

For the final two posts in this series, I will discuss two important principles that we should always keep in mind while addressing the sexual sins that some sexual minority people commit.  I do not presume to have complete pastoral solutions even if I had the space to write them out, but I think the principles I will point out here are both scriptural and fruitful.

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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 5: Sins of the Heart

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Scripture clearly teaches that sin comes from the heart. For example, in Matthew 15:18-20, Jesus teaches that the sins that defile a person come from inside a person’s heart, rather than from outside. In order to truly address our own sins, including the sins described in the previous two posts, we must address the condition of our hearts. The gospel is not really about behavior modification, but about inner transformation. Therefore, in this post, I will discuss some of the attitudes of the heart that contribute to sins against sexual minority people. Despite the fact that I’m not straight, these sins in particular are ones that I have often had to address in my own life, and that I have not completely overcome. However, I believe it will be edifying to bring them to light.

A very common sin, and one that Jesus addressed repeatedly during his earthly ministry, is that of self-righteousness. I think that a lot of straight Christians see themselves as fundamentally better people than most sexual minority people. This is not a truly Christian attitude, because we are all sinners who rely on God for salvation and sanctification. We have done nothing to earn a better place in God’s eyes through our own actions.

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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 4: Sins of Omission

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In the previous post of this series, I discussed overt sins of word and deed, where the nature of the sin is doing something that we should not do.  In this post, I will discuss one major sin of omission, where the nature of the sin is not doing something even though we are commanded to do it.  I personally find that sins of omission can be a greater struggle.  It’s far too easy to just not get around to doing the sorts of good I am commanded to do, or to allow myself to be controlled by fear of man.  However, failing to do what God has commanded is still sinful.

Although the sins I discussed in the last post relate to sexual minorities of all faith convictions, the particular issue I discuss in this post relates specifically to celibate gay Christians.  In Galatians 6:2, we are commanded to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (ESV).  As we have discussed previously here and here, celibacy for gay Christians is often involuntary in the sense that it results from obedience based on conviction, rather than from an otherwise felt gifting or calling.  This type of celibacy can be a difficult burden for people, so if we are really bearing one another’s burdens, we should certainly be bearing that one somehow.

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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 3: Sins of Word and Deed

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Sexual minority people are often the victims of several forms of overt sins of word and deed. Many of these are actions that we can all acknowledge are absolutely sinful. However, I find that many Christians are reluctant to admit the frequency with which sexual minorities in particular are victimized. From what I’ve found, this often results simply from lack of awareness, so I would like to use this post to provide some basic background about issues we should be addressing. Unfortunately, the issues are too numerous to do justice to in a single blog post, so I cannot be comprehensive.

In “Day of Silence 2013,” I discussed the grave moral issue of anti-gay bullying and argued that we need to consider more than just sexual ethics when discussing the topic. Similar issues arise with the issue of hate crimes. In some parts of the world, it is tragically common for sexual minority people to be murdered or brutally beaten if their sexuality becomes known. Milder forms of harassment are also common, and are almost ubiquitous in significant segments of society. For example, “faggot” is a common insult, even though it is deeply offensive. Many people will call something they don’t like “gay.” I can tell you that as someone realizing my own attraction to other guys, hearing that has often been hurtful. Sexual minority people may be rejected socially if their sexuality is known, regardless of their beliefs or subsequent decisions about how to live. Although I have fortunately not experienced this personally to any significant degree, it has happened to others. This sort of behavior should never be considered acceptable.

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Sin and Sexual Minorities Part 1: Introduction

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In Christian discussions about sexual identity issues, the notions of “sin” and “morality” often come up. Typically, gay sex is in focus. There are often complaints about how the gay community is promoting particular sins or forms of sexual immorality. As someone who holds to a traditional understanding of sexual ethics, I agree with some of these concerns.

However, I think this is a far too limited way to view sin and morality. Christian morality cannot be reduced to sexual ethics; other issues are critically important as well. Furthermore, many complaints by Christians demonstrate much greater concern about certain sins committed by sexual minorities than about sins committed against sexual minorities, if sins against sexual minorities are acknowledged at all. Sins against sexual minority people are in fact serious and common, and as Matt Jones discusses in “What Is Love?,” true concern for sexual minorities requires us to acknowledge and fight these sins.

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The Many Facets of Christian Friendship

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This may be of interest to some of our readers: The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture is featuring several pieces on friendship on their website at the moment. Logan Melh-Laituri writes movingly about broken friendships, reconciliation, and friendship with God. Another piece, originally a sermon given at The Falls Church in Virginia by Rev. Bill Haley, is largely about practices that can nurture friendships. Finally, Steve Garber reflects on the relationship between marriage and friendship, about how “if the truth about marriage is that it is a long friendship, not a long date, then much more attention ought to be paid to learning to be friends.”

My favorite line was from Melh-Laituri’s piece: “Friendship simultaneously requires and creates the kind of faith that Christians are called to.”

There’s much food for thought here.

Some Tools of Chaste Living: Introduction

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A dear friend recently asked me: how do you pursue chastity in a celibate state? I realized that I have never really written much on this question, though it is deeply significant to the whole project of helping to integrate gay people into a Church deeply committed to a traditional sexual ethic. Meanwhile, another friend has recently charged that we offer a false hope of a life which is ultimately unsustainable. As these questions come more to the front in my mind, it becomes clearer to me that there needs to be more discussion of how we hope to live chastely.

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Rowan Williams Tells ‘Persecuted’ Western Christians to Grow Up

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Since blog traffic tends to be lower on the weekends than during the week, most of the serious blog content—full posts written by our bloggers—will be posted during the week. I will use the weekends to post brief, thought-provoking excerpts that I think will be of interest to readers of the blog. For the most part, these will be posted with only brief commentary.

The first excerpt comes from a recent story in The Guardian about some comments by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at the Edinburgh International Book Festival:

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New Design for Spiritual Friendship

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As should be fairly obvious if you are reading this (and have ever read a post at Spiritual Friendship before), we have dramatically altered the website design.

When Wesley and I created Spiritual Friendship in April of 2012, we weren’t really sure what we were doing. We’d been privately discussing a bunch of the ideas we’ve talked about here, and a number of our friends encouraged us to talk about them more publicly. At the time, we weren’t sure how much interest there was in our ideas. The reparative therapy/orientation change model that had been used by Exodus International still seemed to be more or less the default approach in orthodox Christian circles. So, with some trepidation, we decided to start a blog. Because we weren’t really sure where this was going, we just chose a default WordPress template, and started tentatively putting out posts.

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